The Braille Upon Her Skin
by RacRules
Summary: "It is not often that I write of my life. It is not often that anyone asks. In fact, I am not quite sure why I am writing this right now, especially given that most likely no one will ever read it." Title reference to the song Braille, by Regina Spektor.


**Constant Regina Spektor songs (plus a little bit of Shake it Out by Florence + the Machine) +Current Tintin obsession after seeing the movie (Oh, my poor little friend Diana. She probably rues the day she agreed to see that thing with me)=this fic. I know its short for a life story, but I was going more for a personal contemplation than a complete memoir. I'll be honest, I've read very few Tintin comics (Don't worry, I'm going to get more as soon as I can!) and only after I saw the movie (yeah, I'm one of THOSE people) but I HAVE seen some of the animated show in French class, so I was acquainted with the character before. Also, despite not having read it I am assuming that Tintin in the Land of the Soviets was not his first assignment, and if the comic states otherwise forgive me.**

**BTW, I know many sources cite him as a teenager when he goes on his adventures, but to me, and especially in the film, he seems a bit older (given that he is shown to live alone) and I put him more around 18-21.**

**I've been trying to avoid looking at other's work with a similar theme, because I don't want it to influence mine and make me look like I stole their idea. But some things I have glanced at, so if you feel like I copied you, rest assured if I did it was not intentional.**

**Please R&R!**

* * *

It is not often that I write of my life. It is not often that anyone asks. In fact, I am not quite sure why I am writing this right now, especially given that most likely no one will ever read it. No, this will be carefully tucked away in my desk drawer as soon as it's finished. But even if my readership were to see these pages, why would I think they would care about my life? They care about dastardly schemes, dangerous plots and grand adventures, not the story of another young boy growing up in Brussels—curious, a tad reckless, and wishing for something oh so much bigger than himself.

If, on the occasion, anyone does inquire about my life, they usually assume I had some kind of dangerous, dark past that compels me to take down the evil in the world out of a hero complex of some sort. But I feel as though if that were the case, I would not be a journalist but a policeman or some kind of vigilante. My motivation, outside of simply what is right, is often just to get a great story. After all, writing is my livelihood and making that livelihood is easiest when you can get the most spectacular stories of the land (though achieving those stories is always far from easy, of course). No, I grew up fairly average child. My mother was dead, but I never knew her, and as I was their only child my father managed decently enough. At times he seemed rather lonely, and because he worked at a large local bank we were always quite well off, while not quite enough to be rich.

I did, however, at one point have a nanny, named Mrs. Dupont. It was suggested to my father that he get one, to give me some form of a mother. She was not anything of the sort. She was a sharp, tired old woman, hair always tied back away from pulling hands and plain cotton dresses smelling of weak tea and the mustiest of attics. There may have been a time when she was a bright, chipper nanny ready to bring kids to parks and play games, but after so many years of caring for children all she wanted me to do was read quietly in the corner as she sewed. Perhaps in the end all that reading helped the development of my writing skill which, in turn, put me ahead in the journalism business, but at the time I detested it. I wanted to run outside, explore the streets, discover things for myself and experience the adventure I always longed for. I would stare out of the window of our apartment, watching the people rush past, threading in and out like ants. I would study their clothes, their activities, and sometimes even read their lips, just trying to figure out who they were and what they were doing. I tried to imagine the interesting lives they led (not knowing at the time that most lives were, in fact, as dull as mine) and wish so dearly that I could live them too. But with a gentle prick of Mrs. Dupont's needle and a sharp look from above her glasses, I was ripped away from the window and back to the page…at least for the next five minutes. Every night, when I kneeled to pray before bed, I always asked for the same things: for God to say hello to my mother, and to someday let me see the world I had only then read about.

Then there was the day that, at the age of nine, I just couldn't stand it any longer. The sun had just risen, casting golden light over the city. As I watched the crowds swell into the morning rush and looked out onto the sun-kissed buildings and all of their secrets, I knew I needed to venture out into them alone, just this once, to see this city beyond the confines of my apartments or my father's side. And, just my luck, on this day and this day only Mrs. Dupont happened to fall asleep. I stared at her snoring body in silence for a few moments, unsure of how to react or what to do about this strange situation. Should I stay? Should I go? Should I…and before I knew it, I was on my feet and slipping out of our little apartment, my heart racing and hands shaking. To be honest, it was a thrill, not unlike the feeling I get now chasing criminals and dodging masterminds, and of course your first taste of a drug like that is always the sweetest. As soon as my boots hit the cobblestone streets, a rush—of independence, of adrenaline, of _adventure_, or so I thought at the time, burst through my veins and I took off running through the crowds, not caring where I was going, just as long as I wasn't allowed be there.

I petted stray dogs, listened in onto the city ladies' risqué gossip, bought candy from the corner store with some change I found in my pocket, struck up conversations with strangers and even was coerced into taking a sip of a mysterious liquid by a friendly man on the side of the street (only to immediately spit the vile concoction back out). Everything I could never do when an adult was watching me I made sure to try…within reason, of course. I _was_ only nine years old. And, after all these years had passed and after all the lands I've experienced, I can soundly say that it is still one of the greatest adventures I've ever had.

But it was destined to end. A friend of my father's saw me run past about ten blocks from my home, and before I knew it I was back within the prison of my apartment, staring down at the floor as my father stared down at me.

"I hope you're ashamed of yourself, boy," Mrs. Dupont spat from the side. I didn't look at her face, but I could only imagine it twisted into a fiery glare.

"You may go home, Mrs. Dupont," my father sighed.

She left mumbling something about how if this was _her _day I would have had this and that and whatnot done to me, and after she marched out the door I never saw her again.

"My son…" He lowered himself to my level, and I was able to look him in the eyes, only for him to immediately look away. I never understood why he did that at the time, and it wasn't until years later that I realized how nervous he was talking to me and how much he feared I was judging him. Despite his looking to the side, I continued to set my gaze on him. At that moment, I realized just how little we were alike. While I had my floppy, too-long-for-my-face patch of pale red hair (I had not yet started combing it forward) that I was often teased by my classmates for, his was perfectly combed, smooth and a deep brown. His eyes, too, were a dark muddy color, while mine were bright blue. I had a rounded, big-eyed face that had always made me look younger and more innocent than I was, much to my dismay, while his was creased with worry lines and squared in a way that made him look significantly older than his then-mid thirties. The unwrinkled, cuff linked suit he wore did not help provide any resemblance either, especially given my then very dirtied and rumpled apparel. "Great snakes…" he groaned, running his hand down his face. "What am I going to do with you?"

"I know, I know. It was a horrible thing to do, and I'll never do it ag—"

"Why did you do it in the first place?"

I paused, searching for an answer…one that was not a lie, because despite how easy it was to lie to my father(or perhaps because of how easy it was), I didn't like doing it, but yet one that was unlikely to annoy the stuffy adult he was.

"…I was _bored. _We don't have anything to do around here. I'm tired of just reading about adventures. I wanted to do something like that too."

He finally looked me in the eye with a frankly unreadable expression, until letting out a long, tired groan.

"You truly are your mother."

"What?"

Father never spoke of my mother. We only had one picture of her, a profile that sat on the back of his desk at home, and from it I could tell just a few things: She had lighter eyes despite the black and white not allowing me the exact shade, and thus I could tell she gave me her eyes, and then most likely my hair too. And finally, she looked sad. If she was like that all the time, I didn't know. But for pictures, she wore a soft frown and her eyes cast downward just slightly, looking as if she was lost in distant, lonely memories.

"Your mother…" he reached up to rub his forehead, as if searching for the words, and with a long, deep breath, he began.

"Your mother was incredible. She was young, so young, when we met, and I was too, but not as young as she was. She was just…so _bright_, so spirited, she just _sparkled. _She had big dreams. She wanted to be someone and to change the world in a way that would put her in the history books. She didn't care how, she just wanted too. But then…" another deep breath, and I could see his eyes start to glisten, "But then she met me. She loved me, I suppose."

"You _suppose_?"

"I loved her dearly. I was a simple young man, my son. I still am. I am and always have been and always will be content with where and who I am. But she always wanted more, and then the years were passing by and her parents started to push marriage on her. They wanted grandchildren, they said, and they didn't want her to spend her prime years with her head in the clouds. They must have worn her down, because against my every expectation she suggested we marry and start a family. It didn't help that she was al—" he stopped suddenly, eyes wide. I waited, but all I got was a quick clear of the throat (still today I can't be anything more than suspicious as to what he was going to say), "But even still, she never seemed content. She often stared out into the windows, just like you do—God, you look so much like her—and I could tell she was wondering what was out there and what she hadn't seen. I was just about to suggest I pool together some of our little money—I wasn't nearly as high up in the bank then—and maybe take a trip to somewhere…B-but then we had you," he paused to divert his eyes, but once again caught himself and turned back to me, "…and life just caught away with us."

I found myself once again staring at the floor. _I _was the reason for my mother never living her dreams?

"Oh, my boy, don't look like that. Your mother loved you so, so much…you were an adventure to her as grand as any faraway country. Often I would hear her with you on our bed, just whispering how great you would be when you grew up…how much you would be able to see and do; how proud she was of you. But then she started to get sick and…" his breath choked in his throat, "I wanted to take her away, just so she could see a little of the world before she died, but soon enough she was far too weak. And then…" he paused, and a tear dripped from his eye and pooled onto the floor. "She had never even left Belgium."

"Alright," was all I said, "Alright."

He dismissed me to my room without another word.

That night, on a whim, I wrote everything down. I guess I didn't want to forget it. Every little animal I gave bread crumbs too, every scandalous rumor I heard, even the taste of the candy and of the mysterious drink, I recorded in detail onto a little piece of scrap paper I found in my room. I read it over once, and then gave it to my father (I had made sure to censor some of the gossip for his sensitive adult ears).

I watched him intently as he read it once, and then again. His hand cupped under his chin, rubbing slowly and thoughtfully.

"Interesting," he said, "Very interesting."

I'm still not sure if he meant it or was just appeasing his son, but he carefully folded my report and placed it gingerly in his suit pocket. I smiled, and raced back into my room to write more and more, and every word I wrote he read, no matter how trivial the matter I wrote of was. It didn't take long (about the third story I was scribbling down) for me to make the connection between adventure and writing. Adventure was something I wanted, and writing was something I was good at. There is one major occupation where the two were connected. And that, I do not believe I have to say, is when I realized I wanted to be a journalist.

It wasn't until when I got into secondary education that I learned my other talent: combat.

I never had any formal training other than reading extensive books on the subject, and any speed was built up mostly from running around the city (by that time, my father had given me much more freedom). At the time, I had never been particularly popular at school, there being no particular reason for me to be particularly noticed. I was fast, but I wasn't strong or notably attractive. My voice had only then begun to cease cracking, and yet I still did not get the dramatic growth spurt my father had promised (To this day, height is something that has never exactly graced me with its presence). As routine, the minute I walked out into the schoolyard after my first class some large hand grabbed my hair and flung me against the wall.

"Hey ginger," the muscles on the arm holding me flexed, and I found myself right in the eyes of, to my surprise, not a smirking, pudgy-faced brute, but a groomed, well toned young man, fist held back at attention. "What do you think you have been doing?"

None of this was new to me. Because of my youthful face, fairly small stature, bookish ways and, of course, ginger looks, I was always a common target for campus thugs. Now, usually in a situation like that I would do what anyone would; either outsmart them and make my great escape, or simply give them what they want if that wasn't an option. But right then, I was a bit too confused for either—he had neither asked for money or for me to do his work for him, which was usually how this scene went.

"What?" I said, wide eyed.

"I want to make sure you haven't been hanging around my Annemarie."

"Who?"

He paused, as if considering my bewilderment. "You know, blond curls, blue eyes, too good for the likes of you?"

None of this was ringing any bell.

"I think you might be mistaken."

"Your name Tintin?"

"That's what I'm called, yes, but…"

"Then you're the right guy." His face and grip softened slightly, though, as if he didn't really want to fight me. A shout of encouragement from another student I assumed was a friend, though, and they both tightened once again, if a bit half-heartedly. Part of me felt sorry for him. The other part was more concerned with his hand still gripping my collar.

"A-and I have to make you pay for the game you've been playing."

"_What game have I been playing_?"

And then, he swung the punch. But it didn't hit me.

I can't say I knew what I was doing at the time, or that I wanted to be fighting at all. My body moved on its own accord, on pure instinct. I swung my head to the side, and his fist collided with the brick behind me. Dropping my books on the ground, I slid out of his range and threw a lone punch at his upper arm, then jetted my other hand forward to strike into his side. With a loud cry, he grasped across his torso and cringed in pain. For a second, I thought I had won, and opened my mouth to declare peace. That is, until he straightened his back and took another punch.

My hands jumped to meet his fist, and before I knew it he had landed at my feet.

As soon as the blur cleared to form legible shapes around me, I found I was met with a crowd of gaping mouths and wide eyes. Then, frantic whispers scattered across the students.

"Did that just happen?"

"Wait, did Tintin just beat up Marius?"

"This is insane…"

And, after a few seconds of tense discussion, they broke, one by one, into applause.

My shoulder was thumped and my hand shaken I don't know how many times. A blue-eyed blonde waved at me with a flirtatious smile on her face; I could only assume she was Annemarie, and that the manor or her smile was a large part of why he attacked me in the first place.

"Y-you l-little a-ass…" My opponent grumbled as he stumbled to his feet. "I-I'm gonna get ya…"

I stuck out a hand to help him up, but he swatted it away.

"You're lucky I was going easy on you," he grumbled, and stiffly walked away, occasionally limping and rubbing his shoulder.

After taking a moment to collect my books, I quickly excused myself from the congratulations of my peers and began the trek back home, only bumping into one person during the route (an accomplishment given how far I was buried in my own thoughts)

Where _did_ that come from?

Of course, it was all in self-defense. I didn't even know the girl I was apparently fighting for and I would never get into something as juvenile as a schoolyard fight intentionally. I supposed my then-first instinct of handing the bullies what they asked for was holding back a skill that only then I had the chance to let loose, and what a skill it was. I don't like fighting, I never have. Still today I avoid it unless it is, of course, absolutely necessary. But even then I was not as ignorant as to think that I would never need to fight, especially given my chosen profession.

When I entered my apartment, I locked the door to my bedroom. There was no way I was going to let my father or our housekeeper, Ms. Geerts (after Mrs. Dupont left, he eventually decided that he did need a female aid around the house) catch me staring at myself in the mirror (Such an action is usually not easily explained). I took off my shirt, leading only a sleeveless undershirt, and studied my arms. They were thin, as they always had been, not bony but with about the same tone as a child or a girl. However, for the first time I noticed faint muscles underneath, extremely subtle but existent.

And from that day forward, I made it my duty to learn to fight. I took classes. I watched film reels of soldiers and studied their training. I punched at trees, at pillows, sometimes just air, anything I could think of. I built up those muscles until they grew less and less subtle, though never letting them grow too noticeable—they needed to be easily hidden by long-sleeved shirts. At school I came to be known as the "Ginger Lion;" the baby-face who could take down the largest, most iron-tough boys in the class. I have to admit I was a tad fond of the nickname, which unfortunately didn't stick when I graduated and I haven't heard it for years, save a few instances of alumni from my year trying to be nostalgic.

And finally, one of the final crossroads: I learned to shoot a gun. An old friend of mine from school had a father who hunted and, being a former military man, also collected a variety of guns, so for every weekend for two years I went to his home just outside of Brussels to practice shooting. Trees turned into targets, targets turned into cans, cans turned into small game. The day I shot a pistol and hit a grouse perfectly from 80 meters away he told me I was quite honestly the best shot on the grounds. The day I hit a deer from 210, I was perhaps the best shot he'd ever seen.

I believe that was the just about the last straw for my father. He had been watching me train for years, never verbally questioning it, but I could see the stern look of disapproval in his eyes. Every time he saw me looking he turned away, even if his face didn't soften. But this, I suppose, was unacceptable for him. He hated guns and anything to do with them. They scared him, I guess, because he'd never needed one. I tried to tell him that I was learning for _defense_, not _offense_, but to him a gun was a gun, and the sight of me holding one much less shooting it was sickening and shameful. He tended to keep quiet, though, and never tried to interfere despite the fact that I was still under his roof and his bill.

But it was the day I snuck in a pistol of my own that the dam finally broke loose. I never found out who had told him I had gotten it, but he caught be by the door, told me to lift my shirt, and when he saw the stained metal of the gun he ripped it from its hiding place and threw it on the table (luckily the safety was on). I was almost afraid he would slap me with the look he was shooting my way, but instead he marched behind the table and collapsed into the chair. I sat across from him, perhaps a little curiously.

"I don't even understand why you're doing this," he snapped, despite not looking at my face and instead appearing very interested in our stove, "I thought you wanted to be a journalist! Why do you insist on learning all of this combat? And bring _that_," he jutted his finger at the source of his ire, lying on our table, "into my household?"

"I do," I replied with a sigh, "But not just around Brussels. I want to travel and report on the _world_, and with that will come dangerous situations. These are skills that will be necessary for survival. And _that _is simply part of the equation."

"And that is supposed to make me feel _better_? That you're running off to dive into situations where you could very well die?"

"No, but…"

"You're my only family, you know, and I'd like you to outlive me! Why can't you just report on safe things?"

"Like local news?"

He nodded, as if it was so obvious. "Yes, things where I won't have to fear for your life."

"You won't, now that I can shoot." I smirked and sat back in my chair, but this seemed to only fuel his anger.

"You think this is funny! ?" He shot up from the table, sending the flower vase shaking when he slammed his hands down onto it, "You think that going headfirst into possible death is just fun and games?"

I almost jumped with surprise. I don't think I'd ever heard my father raise his voice before, least of all at me. He had always found expressing his feelings to me, except for the occasion such as the day he told me of my mother, to be quite difficult, as if I would think him weak for them. "No, but it comes with the business." I didn't rise to meet him. I was much smaller than him; it wouldn't have helped my case very much.

"UGH!" he shouted towards the heavens, gripping his hair in his hand, "you just don't get it, do you?"

"What is it that I don't get?" I felt my own cheeks burning, and I had to hold my hands in my lap to keep from throwing them on the table myself.

With a gasp of frustration and then an only somewhat-effective calming breath, he slowly lowered his head to meet my eyes again. "You don't get that you have no reason to go gallivanting off into danger like an immature, naïve, selfish _child_!"

That stopped me. At least for a moment.

"And don't you know I would like to see—"

"Grandchildren?" I asked. His eyes opened wide for a split second, and he quickly turned away.

I leaned back, relaxing against my chair, and forced my voice into a monotone. "You would like to see grandchildren. That was what you were going to say, wasn't it? So, you want me to stick at home and never venture out beyond the ordinary, abandon all my plans to force myself to be happy with a plain, simple existence, give into the pressures of my parents and never live my own life, instead spending it unfulfilled and dying without ever leaving Belgium. In other words, you want me to _really _be my mother. Is that what you want?"

Looking back on this moment I have to admit I regret saying that now. I knew how that comment would affect him. Heavens, that's the reason I said it. But no matter how triumphant it felt at the time, the memory burns me. His mouth opened, closed, and he bit his lip, muddy eyes never leaving mine. I knew him well enough, though, to see the hurt behind them, and yet I was in no mood to apologize. I glared back for a long while, until finally I stood from the table and stalked out of the room. I didn't look back, but I could hear him give a shaky sigh.

We didn't speak more than two words daily for a month and not more than two sentences for four. It probably would have lasted longer, but on that fifth month, he made it up to me in the most unexpected way possible, and most definitely the greatest gift I was ever given. I was reading (perhaps with a touch of sulking) in my room one day when my father suddenly appeared in the doorway, a small box in hand and nervousness in his eyes.

"Yes?" I asked, more out of politeness than any desire to talk. I was still angry at him, believe it or not. Perhaps the longest I've ever been mad at anyone close to me. Grudges are something I abandoned years ago; they are simply a waste of time and emotions. Back then, though, I had yet to learn that.

"I—" My father had long returned to his natural habitat of meekly glancing from side to side as he spoke to me, adding the new habit of choosing each world carefully as if a simple sentence would spark an argument. "I-I've gotten you something. You always wanted one as a boy, and I know its years late, but I hope you can still enjoy him…" I heard a slight rustling from the box, and my jaw dropped.

"You didn't." I stood, reaching forward to take the box from him and gingerly placing the shoebox-sized package on my lap. When I carefully lifted the lid, I was met with the tiniest, shakiest puppy I had seen in my life. "Great snakes!" I exclaimed, having long caught that phrase from my father, "Ha! Look at this…"

His fur was as white and fleecy as a cotton ball and yet far softer and finer, seeming to disappear between my fingers as I gently touched his back. The puppy looked up at me with his timid black eyes, and after a few moments I felt the slight wetness of his tongue shyly lick my finger.

"He's beautiful," I breathed, lowering my hands in the box and grinning when I felt his paws bumble into them.

"You'll have to name him."

I thought for a moment, and decided in the next. "Snowy."

It wasn't exactly the most creative name for a dog with white fur, I'll admit, but his was just so purely white and seemed so purely innocent, that in the end it felt more than appropriate. My father nodded, and finally met my eyes.

"Thank you," I told him.

"You're welcome. Consider him a year-early graduation present," he said, barely above a whisper. "Son, Snowy." He nodded at the both of us before turning and walking out of the room.

I lay back on my bed, Snowy nestled on my chest. I just couldn't keep the smile off my face. A dog! My very own dog! I felt just like a little boy again, so full of warmth and the excitement bubbling up in me. I couldn't think of a better present I could have been given! And yet, I also had an odd sense of potential. This little ball of fur and life on my chest was a sign. A sign of the life out there, out growing and thriving in the world. He was so white, so pure, so unspoiled by the dirt of city streets and the world. And, unlike a person, he was not likely to ever be corrupted by it all. He truly would be my perfect companion; loyal beyond all reason. The world was right, the sun was bright and my…_our_ potential was boundless. Nothing could go wrong.

That is, until August 12th, not a four months later. A date that is forever engrained in my memory as the day that everything changed, and the reason I'm where and who I am today.

It was a day like any other, sun burning high in the sky and Snowy, now grown to almost his full size, danced around my feet, filled with vast, unstopping energy that even I could never hope to match. Any sense of the nervousness or shyness he had as a puppy had been very quick to melt away, leaving only panting excitement. I had gotten a low job in the newspaper by then. I had already become something of a local legend, given my young age—I had not yet even graduated secondary education—but had yet to reach the more international recognition I have now. I had only done local stories, much to my dismay. However, as they happened to deal with gangsters, embezzlement and a particularly vicious breed of goats, they were enough to get my father unsettled. He was even less thrilled with the fact that the newspaper had been hinting at letting me go overseas for a month.

I entered our apartment and immediately slumped into our couch with today's newspaper. For the last month, I had been closely monitoring both my and the paper my father ordered for ads on the perfect apartment for me to move into; affordable on my salary, which was not particularly high, comfortable, close to my workplace, and allowed dogs.

"Still looking though those ads, my boy?" my father mumbled over his teacup.

"I need to find my own place eventually." I turned another page. "Ah, here's a great offer! All of my criteria…oh, but a little out of my price range. Shame."

"Shame," he repeated, somewhat solemnly.

"Father, you're not still uneasy about me moving out, are you?" I laughed, flipping the page again. "My goodness, I'm almost graduated, I have a job...when will I move out if not now?"

"Hm." Was his only answer. I shrugged, abandoning the subject for now to eat some dinner. Our housekeeper occasionally cooked for us, mostly due to her pity for two men living in a house with no female touch, not realizing that both of us could in fact fix a fairly decent meal. Lord knows what she thought we did when she wasn't around.

"I can't believe I have to tell someone your age not to feed your dog at the table," she sighed when she caught me tossing Snowy a scrap of meat.

"Oh relax, he loves it! Don't you, boy?"

Snowy gave a chipper bark in reply and jumped into my lap, prompting the housekeeper to let out a sharp sigh.

"Don't worry, don't worry, we're leaving." I scooped up Snowy and carried him down the hall to my room. I heard she and my father's whispers, hers harsher than his but still keeping the tone of someone in servitude. They were concerned for me; I knew it, how needless it may be. Though I was not yet out of school (the only reason I hadn't yet escaped this God forsaken city to see something different for a change), my father could see me already drifting away, and to be honest, so could I. It's not that I wanted to leave _him_, but when something just refuses to budge no matter how hard you pull, sometimes you just have to leave it behind. Or so I thought at the time.

By those days, my room was typical for any teenager wanting to go into reporting: newspaper cut outs, usually stories of faraway places, pasted all over the right wall. My desk was fully consumed by a heavy black typewriter whose keys had the tendency to stick, as I had bought it used. At its legs were half a dozen piles of books, ranging from adventure novels to non-fiction references. My bed was made but only by Ms. Geerts, and as I lay down on it Snowy hopped up beside me to press his paws to my chest. I relaxed, threading my aching fingers from typing all day, and actually enjoyed the calm.

That was when I heard her scream my name.

The rest more clear in my memory than any other moment in my life. I sat stationary for one or two seconds, shocked and confused. Then I flew from my bed and out my door, to the kitchen, fast, faster, not knowing what exactly was happening but not caring either. Snowy stumbled beside me, trying to run into my legs. I didn't even look down at him. My eyes were set only straight ahead. My heart raced. My breaths were broken.

The seconds ticked by, slowly, evenly, with my movements. I almost slipped when I skidded into the kitchen. I almost didn't want to look towards her, because I didn't want to know what had happened. I didn't want my fairly simple life to end. I didn't want to face reality and the dangers that live in even our boring, simple homes. But I looked, and there, lying on Ms. Geets lap, was my father.

His eyes were closed. His limbs were limp. His chest was not moving.

Our housekeeper's eyes and tears pleaded with me to do something, but what? I was only a boy. I was educated, I was trained, but I was not a miracle worker, and part of me had already known it was over. I dropped to my knees beside him, pressing my fingers to his neck, begging, _begging _whatever would answer for the soft beat of his pulse. All I felt was his still-warm skin.

"Please…" I choked, barely on a breath, "Please, please, please…"

Nothing.

"Get help." Ms. Geerts stared at me in disbelief, but I pushed her aside, "NOW!" I didn't watch her leave. I was dead focused on pounding on his chest and praying to see him breath. He didn't.

I kept trying, and trying, and trying. I wanted to stop. I knew that it was over and he just wasn't coming back. And yet every time I found myself pushing his chest again, because maybe if I try just _one _more time…there were moments I swore for a second that I did see his chest rise, only to realize once again that I was just me kidding myself. Tears of many kinds—despair, frustration, anger—blurred my vision. A sharp ache burned my arms.

Far too slowly, Ms. Geets returned with our closest neighbor to own a car, and he helped me lay my father in the backseat and together we drove to the hospital, where nothing was accomplished except confirming what I had already known for an hour.

"I'm sorry. There is nothing we can do now."

August 12th. The day my father's heart stopped.

My neighbor drove me home from the hospital. I'd imagine my face was unreadable at the time. I didn't have the energy to emote. There were time he tried to speak to me, but I wouldn't respond; I simply continued to look out to the passing streets and cars, near comatose. Finally, he gave up with a sigh.

"He was a fine, hardworking fellow. That's all I want to say."

I was silent.

When I returned to the apartment, now cold and empty, Snowy's large black eyes stared up at me with the same innocence and naivety of when I first opened his box. I scooped him up and held him to my chest, perhaps too tightly, and let my tears fall onto his back. Whether or not he understood what had happened at the time, I couldn't say. But he definitely knew something was wrong, and when I felt his tongue lick my cheek, I broke from soundless tears to outright sobbing, the tears causing my eyes to ache and burn. I could feel my father's disappointed frown, I could hear him telling me to dry my eyes, boy, it's not the end of the world…

Then, I remembered it.

Without thinking, or feeling, or even controlling my own body, I stood and followed the halls to a familiar room, decorated with dark wood furniture and blood red walls. My father's presence radiated in it; omnipresent and ghostlike. I smelled the musty smokiness of his cigar; I could hear his finger drumming repeatedly on the smooth surface of the desk. I ran my hand across it, feeling the faint scratches and the worn, leathery water marks, also present on the twisted elbows of his chair. And on that desk rested a single faded picture, undisturbed and unchanged for all my seventeen years. On that picture was my mother.

I gazed down at her for I don't know how long. My eyes, my hair…and as I studied her further, every bit of me seemed to be inherited from her. Nothing at all in me resembled the man I just saw die. How is that possible? Surely something must have been given to me. But no, her rert nose, round face, her thirst for the outside. A single, dark thought emerged in my mind: was I even his son? I shook it off as quickly as I could. I must be. I must be. There must be something…

And I saw it. There was a feature of hers that didn't seem to pass down to me. I squinted into the frame, and for the first time I noticed that her skin was peppered by faint freckles, barely noticeable. I touched my cheek. My skin had never been more than pale and unblemished.

It seems I did get something from dear Father, after all.

It was a small comfort, but the warmth in my chest still grew, because there was a part of him in me, and thus a part of him still alive. And I got another thing from him, far more important than an eye or hair color. He hopped into my lap, panting and whining for attention. I gripped him close, burying my face into his bundles of fur. My little friend whined again, lower and sadder, and I think he finally connected what had happened, as he stuck out a paw to bat my father's desk. The paw then relaxed onto my thigh, and he curled into me the same way I curled around him. I looked out to the setting sun, setting the sky ablaze with orange and red. One night, and then a new day. New opportunities. New choices. New life. Snowy jumped to lick my face, and I smiled at him—still the same innocence and boundless loyalty. I knew what I needed to do.

I said a small prayer to my father, a thank you, and an apology, before gently pushing Snowy off my lap and picking up the phone. Nearly shaking with excitement (and perhaps a little nervousness, not that I would admit that if someone else besides myself were ever going to read this), I dialed the number to Le Petit Vingtième. My boss answered with a certain skeptical feeling to his hello when he heard my voice. I took one last glance at the sunset, at the sky, and finally spoke.

"I'm ready to go international, please."

From now, I am not sure what else to say. Everything after that happened to quickly I almost can't make sense of it.

The assignment was everything I had always wanted. Spain. Barcelona. Drug smugglers from Africa. Excitement, action, faraway lands and a nice dastardly plot for me to foil. It was everything I had always fantasized and read about. So why was it that I was actually looking forward to going home? I smile looking back on the day I got off the train from that first assignment and noticed for the first time in years how lovely Brussels looked on a blue day, how friendly the people were and how many of them knew me by name. I remembered how much I loved and missed the roadside food stands with their familiar, comforting selections, and how nobody makes chocolate like we Belgians do, not even close, as the creamy delicacy melted on my tongue. It was not two hours of wandering through the market, haggling prices and striking conversations, before I had to admit to myself that no matter how I complained, I might have just a bit of affection for this place. In fact, I may just love it. I may just want to live here for the rest of my life.

I knew would inherit my father's money, but even as I thought of my upcoming wealth I couldn't think of it as anything but blood money. It was not mine, I hadn't earned it, I only had it because my father died. Was it even right to use it? But even in times like those I knew I needed to be practical. I was still a student, albeit one with only one more year to go, and thus would not have as much time to be reporting as I would like. For a moment I considered dropping out of school, but I quickly shook my head; now _that _would be disrespecting my father's memory. That money would be needed.

Sometimes, when I sat in the apartment that money bought, I wondered. I wonder even now that I've moved out of that apartment, perhaps even more. I wonder about my father, what he would think of me now; constantly moving, constantly risking everything, and the fact that I find it hard to go down to the marketplace to buy fruit anymore without finding danger. But that woman in the picture often dominates my thoughts as well. On certain, rare days—like today, for instance, as I sit at my typewriter writing up this silly, pointless little memoir—small questions flutter my mind. Was she the entire reason I wanted to leave? Were her deterred dreams passed on to me, and they were the reason my father worried and fought with me all those years? Am I living for me or for her? And thus is everything I've studied, trained, and fought for all a waste? And, above all, was my father right all along? But I, being me, am of course not going to dwell on such melancholy matters for long. Even if it was selfish, even if it was defying my father's wishes and disrespecting his memory, that sense of adventure was not going away anytime soon. And then, faster than I expected, the rest hit me. I was living for me, because no matter what my father tried he couldn't change that I was her. But I was not living for her. This is what _I_ wanted and needed.

There are times, rarely, that I do wonder if there are things I'm going to have to miss out on with my chosen lifestyle. I lie back on my bed, staring at the ceiling and wondering if the "more" I've chosen is truly "more." Then I shake my head, tell myself that I'm too young to be upsetting myself over those matters and get on with my day. It's not like I don't have a family; my friends in Marlinspike Hall and, of course, my dear Snowy, have been with me through so very much that it's impossible not to consider them practical flesh and blood. Perhaps that's why I don't discuss my past; I'd rather focus on what I have now than my former losses. Or perhaps it has to do with how everyone expects me to have that dark, tragic back story. Most of my life was not _particularly_ remarkable, so why would they care? Secondly, I don't want to turn the parts that did shake me, such as my father's death, into another news piece, just another little report, for them to read and gasp and get their daily drama from.

But keep on moving forward, I say. Keep your head up. It's gotten me this far, hasn't it? The past is not something to be left behind; that's positively foolish. The past should not be allowed to drag you down either, only to push you forward. Why beat a dead horse? Its the mantra every writer knows: there will be hard times and sometimes you'll type the wrong words, but the best thing to do is to simply press "Eet," go down the page and go on with the story. That's what I think. And as sad as my mother looked in that picture I keep on my desk, perhaps if the way my father said she spoke to me was true, she thought that as well. And my father, well, perhaps there's more of him in me than I know.

You're Tintin, they say; star reporter, boy wonder, international celebrity, etc. But I've never felt like that. I am and always have been and always will be just a kid from this one city in this one country in this one continent in this one world, not unlike any other. And looking out to the moon resting in the night sky over my city, I know that I'll always come back to this little place no matter where I'll go. I seem simple because I am simple, and I like it that way, believe it or not. And that, I guess, is all there is to it.

* * *

**And yet again, a little spur-of-the-moment drabble turns into a-takes-weeks-to-finish, 14 page oneshot, and I still wish I could have written more. I had to do a surprising amount of **_**research**_** for this fic (what Belgian highschool is called, gun ranges, French surnames, general time period traits) not to mention that this fanfic had a friggin soundtrack (I can't believe I needed this many songs!). In case you're wondering (or care, which I assume is no), here it is, the songs I couldn't write this fic without listening to and every time I listened to them I wanted to write the fic:**

**Shake it Out, by Florence + The Machine (General fic theme)**

**Eet, by Regina Spektor (General fic theme)**

**Braille, by Regina Spektor (theme for Tintin's mom, and original inspiration)**

**Samson, by Regina Spektor (theme for Tintin's dad)**

**Blue Lips, by Regina Spektor (angst theme)**

**Oedipus, by Regina Spektor (theme for Tintin's rebel-ish teenage years)**

******The Call, by Regina Spektor (Theme for ending)**


End file.
